My husband's nose changed first—a nearly imperceptible spot-the-difference puzzle on a face I'd known for twenty-two years. Through our kitchen's bay windows, the morning sunlight highlighted his ... [+]
My very dear Claire, I already know so much about you, and yet I have never actually seen you. For six months now, I have been passing you, sensing you, hearing you, closing my eyes when I smell your scent, as rich and powerful as a childhood memory, leaving its warm fragrance of caramel gingerbread to perfume the staircase. Nowadays thousands of people live right next to each other without ever seeing each other. The fact that chance has so happily cast us on the same road, in the same building, on the same landing, I take that as a gift of life. I just wanted to tell you in this letter how